A RARE FIRST EDITION 
 BEING THE STORY OF 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER'S 
 PACIFIC POEMS (1871) 
 
University of California Berkeley 
 
 Gift of 
 ROBERT B. HONE YM AN, JR. 
 
A RARE FIRST EDITION 
 
 BEING THE STORY OF 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER'S 
 PACIFIC POEMS (1871) 
 
 OF WHICH ONLY TWO COPIES 
 ARE AT PRESENT KNOWN 
 
 WALTER M. HILL 
 CHICAGO 
 
 1915 
 
One hundred copies privately printed 
 of which this is 
 
 THE TORCH PRESS 
 
 CEDAR RAPIDS 
 
 IOWA 
 
PACIFIC POEMS 
 
PACIFIC POEMS 
 
 Collectors of first editions of Ameri 
 can authors have often had their curios 
 ity piqued by the postscript appended 
 by Joaquin Miller to his Songs of the 
 Sierras, London, 1871. This cryptic 
 statement read: "The foregoing is the 
 preface to a thin book printed here last 
 winter, but not published further than to 
 send less than half-a-dozen copies to the 
 press. As the reader sometimes is curi 
 ous to know the origin of a new book, 
 and this includes almost all that could be 
 sought, I let it stand. ' ' Certainly the in 
 formation thus given is not particularly 
 
illuminating, and up to the present time 
 little more has been known. Very few 
 collectors or dealers have ever seen a 
 copy of the "thin book" referred to. A 
 fortunate combination of circumstances, 
 however, has recently revealed the true 
 story of the little book. The facts re 
 garding it, as we now know them, are, it 
 is believed, of sufficient interest to war 
 rant passing them on to those collectors 
 who are wise enough to include in their 
 pastime the pleasant habit of annotating 
 their private catalogues and inserting 
 bibliographical or literary notes in their 
 copies of famous or rare books. 
 
 Joaquin Miller's "thin book" was a 
 little duodecimo volume bound in green 
 cloth, (xii) + 107 pages in extent, en 
 titled Pacific Poems. It was put into 
 
type, probably at the author's expense, 
 during the early months of 1871. So far 
 as we have been able to ascertain only 
 one copy has ever before been publicly 
 offered for sale by a dealer. This was 
 the copy offered in Mr. J. F. Drake's 
 catalogue No. 78 (1914), item no. 97. 
 With an easily pardonable enthusiasm 
 that genial bibliophile as well as biblio 
 pole described it as probably the only 
 one in existence. A wariness doubtless 
 learned through hard experience led him 
 to use that saving word "probably." 
 For, nine times out of ten, let a book 
 seller or collector describe a print 
 ed work as "unique" or "probably 
 unique," and an ironical Fate at once 
 rises up to prove him mistaken. Thus 
 it has proved in the case of Pacific 
 
Poems. A second copy has come to light 
 and in October, 1915, this was acquired 
 by Mr. Walter M. Hill of Chicago. 
 
 It is an attested fact of literary his 
 tory that Joaquin Miller's early work 
 was rather severely criticised by Amer 
 ican reviewers. So, daring greatly, he 
 sought the world's capital in the hope 
 of finding there a sympathetic publisher 
 for his first collected volume of verse. 
 In London he was most hospitably re 
 ceived in the highest literary and social 
 circles. He found friends and helpful 
 critics among the leading men of letters 
 of the day and with one of them, Lord 
 Houghton (Richard Monckton Milnes), 
 he afterwards spent a winter in Greece 
 tracing out the places hallowed by asso 
 ciation with Byron whom he was accus 
 tomed to call the Master. Another 
 
friend was Dean Stanley, and it is with 
 him that this record of the new facts re 
 garding Pacific Poems may fitly begin. 
 
 Some time in the spring of 1871, at the 
 home of Dean Stanley, Cincinnatus Hin- 
 er Miller was introduced to a young 
 Irish poet, one who is still living and 
 who has made his mark in various fields 
 of literary endeavor. From his pen, un 
 der date of June 1st, 1915, there comes 
 the following interesting narrative : 
 
 "Dean Stanley introduced me to him 
 as a brother poet likely to befriend a 
 stranger in London. I called upon Mr. 
 Miller, who was living in Whitechapel, 
 and afterwards introduced my friend 
 and compatriot, Mr. Greorge F. Savage 
 Armstrong, to him. We became some 
 what intimate, and soon gathered from 
 Mr. Miller that he proposed publishing 
 
a volume of poems dealing with New 
 Mexico. He showed us some of these 
 poems, which he entitled * Pacific 
 Poems/ in proof. We were both great 
 ly struck with their originality and beau 
 ty, but were forced to confess and tell 
 him quite plainly that much of his metre 
 was extremely faulty. He was annoyed 
 but evidently impressed. One day he 
 came to me and said, 'Look here, do you 
 mind taking a passage this passage 
 pointing to it in his proofs from my 
 poem Oregonia, and putting it into what 
 you call correct metre, but altering my 
 words as little as possible.' I said 'By 
 all means ! ' took the proof, and shortly 
 afterwards sent it back to him corrected 
 in the way asked for. Without telling 
 Savage Armstrong that he had been to 
 me on the subject, he made exactly the 
 
same request to him, asking him to cor 
 rect the same passage in the same way, 
 which Savage Armstrong accordingly 
 did. After a day or two he wrote to 
 each of us somewhat in these terms : 'I 
 rather disbelieved what you two boys 
 said about the metre of my poems, and 
 so I put you both to the same test, and 
 as curiously enough your revisions of the 
 same passage came out just the same 
 there must be something in your criti 
 cism, and I have decided to revise my 
 book on the lines suggested by you both. ' 
 No doubt Miller was in a difficult position 
 with his publishers, to whom he probably 
 never explained why he found himself 
 bound to withdraw Pacific Poems. How 
 could he give himself away by saying it 
 was due to their technical deficiency? In 
 any case he does not say so in his post- 
 
cript to ' Songs of the Sierras,' a title 
 suggested by Savage Armstrong, a vol 
 ume of more than twice the length of Pa 
 cific Poems, but embodying them in a re 
 vised form. My friend George Francis 
 Armstrong, like Joaquin Miller, has 
 joined the great majority, so I have been 
 unable to obtain his confirmation to the 
 above statement, but his widow has writ 
 ten to confirm my view of what happened 
 between us and Miller, saying that 'he 
 had assisted Miller to tune up his poems' 
 and given him the title of ' Songs of the 
 Sierras ' for his enlarged volume. ' ' 
 
 At the end of the Preface to Pacific 
 Poems Miller added the following: "P. 
 S. I got the foregoing and the two fol 
 lowing Poems in type, about half the con 
 templated book, when I fortunately met 
 with an able critic, who kindly looked 
 
over the proofs, and advised me not to 
 publish. I shall follow his advice, for 
 the fact of his being a critic does not de 
 pend entirely on the fact that he never 
 wrote a successful line in his life, but he 
 has good judgment and a well balanced 
 head ; in fact I know of nothing equal to 
 the equilibrium of his mind, except, it 
 may be, its stupidity. M." According 
 ly, he abandoned the plan of publishing 
 Pacific Poems, and, as he said in the pre 
 face to Songs of the Sierras, less than 
 half-a-dozen copies left his hands. The 
 one concerning which this account has 
 been written is made up as follows : Pa 
 cific Poems / By Joaquin Miller. / (Pub 
 lishers' Device) / London: / Whitting- 
 ham And Wilkins. / 1871. / (xii) + 107 
 pages: P. (i), half-title, containing 
 words "Pacific Poems' '; p. (ii), blank; 
 
p. (iii), title-page as above; p. (iv), 
 blank; p. (v), dedication, "To Maud"; 
 p. (vi), blank; pp. (vii)-x, Preface; p. 
 (xi), Fly-title, "Arazonian"; p. (xii), 
 containing twenty-seven lines of verse in 
 italic type, beginning "Because the skies 
 were blue, because"; pp. (1)-18, the 
 poem entitled "Arazonian"; p. (19), 
 Fly-title, "Oregonia"; p. (20), contain 
 ing fifteen lines of verse, beginning, 
 "Sad song of the wind in the moun 
 tains"; pp. (21)-107, the dramatic poem 
 entitled * ' Oregonia. ' ' 
 
 This copy is the one presented to the 
 "brother poet" to whom Miller was in 
 troduced in Dean Stanley's drawing 
 room and who wrote out the story of the 
 results of their meeting as given above. 
 Written in ink on the half-title is the in 
 scription: A. Perceval Graves of the Isle 
 
of Erin from his friend C. H. Miller the 
 California Savage. 
 
 The revised volume, Songs of the Sier 
 ras, was issued in the early summer of 
 1871 by Longmans, Green, Eeader and 
 Dyer. A glance at the text of the poem 
 Arasonian at once shows changes from 
 that printed in the suppressed Pacific 
 Poems. For example, in the latter, 
 lines 12-13 read: 
 
 And hope to ride on the billows of 
 
 breasts, 
 And hope to rest in the haven of 
 
 bosoms. 
 
 In Songs of the Sierras this becomes : 
 
 And hope to ride on the billows of 
 
 And hope to rest in the haven of 
 breasts. 
 
 Oregonia, the longest of the two pieces 
 
in Pacific Poems does not appear as such 
 or under this title in Songs of the Sier 
 ras. The poet seems to have worked 
 over the subject matter of Oregonia 
 anew, changed his metrical scheme en 
 tirely, as well as the names of the char 
 acters (except one, Lamonte), and given 
 the rewritten poem a new title, Ina. 
 The version in Pacific Poems opens 
 thus: 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 A hacienda in the Sacramento. S ANTON A 
 standing alone, looking on the moonlit moun 
 tains. 
 
 SANTONA 
 
 Diabla looms like a sea-girt isle above 
 
 The rolling clouds that break in foam of 
 
 snow; 
 
 Beyond, the buttes lie flashing in the moon, 
 Like silver tents pitch 'd in the fields of 
 
 heaven, 
 
While still beyond, Sierra 's gleaming peaks, 
 Wrapped in their shrouds of everlasting snow, 
 Do stand in line as I look heavenward, 
 Like mighty mile-stones on the way to God. 
 
 In Ina this becomes : 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 A Hacienda near Tezcuco, Mexico. Young 
 DON CABLOS alone, looking out on the moonUt 
 mountains. 
 
 DON CARLOS 
 
 Popocatapetl looms lone like an island 
 
 Above the white cloud-waves that break up 
 against him ; 
 
 Around him white buttes in the moon light 
 are flashing, 
 
 Like silver tents pitch M in the fields of 
 heaven ; 
 
 While standing in line, in their snows ever 
 lasting, 
 
 Flash peaks as my eyes into heaven are lifted, 
 
 Like milestones that lead to the City Eternal. 
 
These extracts sufficiently illustrate 
 the nature and extent of the changes 
 made by Miller as a result of the crit 
 icism of Messrs. Armstrong and Graves. 
 
 The Songs of the Sierras was reviewed 
 in the Athenaeum, amongst other jour 
 nals, sympathetically but discriminating 
 ly. In its number for June 3, 1871, the 
 Athenaeum said: "Although we cannot 
 give Mr. Miller a front place in the hier 
 archy of modern poets, we are glad to 
 welcome him as a true and original sing 
 er. t Songs of the Sierras' is a volume 
 which must be read by all lovers of real 
 poetry. The poems show traces of the 
 influences of our best modern poets. Mr. 
 Miller is, however, no copyist. . . . He 
 resembles Browning in novel and apt 
 metaphors taken from objects high or 
 low, common or uncommon, but always 
 
new and forcible, and often quaint 
 making one smile at the sudden turn." 
 
 After the appearance of this volume, 
 says one who was in close touch with the 
 poet, life became easier and he was 
 sought after by the great both in Europe 
 and his own country. The copy of 
 Songs of the Sierras which he presented 
 to Mr. Graves is preserved along with 
 that of the Pacific Poems, and its half- 
 title bears the inscription: To one of 
 my first and firmest friends in London. 
 Joaquin Miller. June 24. 71. These 
 two volumes, around which cluster so 
 many memories of friendship and liter 
 ary association, are treasures which 
 every collector of American first editions 
 would surely delight to possess. 
 

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